Fancy a game, my dear?
by Raenin
Summary: The story of the Lone Wanderer was always... misunderstood. The Lone Wanderer did not grow up in Vault 101, and in fact never even heard of it until they turned twenty due to a kid leaving and causing a ruckus. The true Lone Wanderer ended that nonsense with a bullet right away. Set in an AU to the Fallout timeline. All games included set at roughly the same time.


**_Hello Everybody!_**

**_This is my first real fanfic, so I'm looking forward to doing some writing._**

**_Not much more to say at the moment, so enjoy the story._**

**_-Rae_**

* * *

**Fancy a game, my dear?**

* * *

Blackjack was not having a good day.

Looking at the nightmare that was his life as a whole, today could still be seen as particularly bad.

It started well enough, two gorgeous women (By apocalypse standards) as well as a man cuddling with him in bed, as well as a second man under the covers waking Blackjack up in a rather _enjoyable_ way, in bed with him when he opened his eyes, it had all the makings of a good day.

But all good things pretty quickly come to an end as far as Blackjack is concerned, so it came as little surprise to him when it was unceremoniously ruined with a loud crash.

What did surprise him, however, was the fact that the source of the crash was an armored Behemoth sporting a full erection (And yes it is a sight that should never be imagined, so perhaps don't do that) with a drunk synth on its back ranting and raving at Blackjack. Something to do with time travel, not that the man mentioned cared much for listening at the moment.

Not only was it a pain in the ass to kill, it kept trying to become a literal one despite the obvious size difference, and on top of that the three that had previously been cuddling up to Blackjack were crushed, not having gotten out of the way of the monsters foot before it crashed down onto the bed.

Simply put, after the experience he was in the mood to butcher a live Deathclaw using a particularly blunt knife.

Unfortunately for the residents of a small town southwest of the Mojave Wasteland, neither Deathclaw nor Knife made themselves known, so he was left sleeping in a scummy bar surrounded by a ridiculous amount of empty bottles.

Hey, if you went through something like that I'm certain you'd also prefer the memories erased for you.

It was starting to work too; the nap, not the booze, being able to get drunk is a pretty important part of that.

At least, it was, before something smashed the sleeping man's chair out from under him, knocking him onto his ass.

"Oi, mind explaining what-" Blackjack would have kept yelling at his attacker, had he not seen exactly how BIG they were, as well as completely hideous.

Standing at eight feet tall even when slouching, and wider than Hagrid with a binge eating problem, the monster was truly a sight to behold.

What struck Blackjack more than the size though was it's less than pleasing appearance. The visibly female form, green scales patterned like a vegetarians puke, hairy tumors, completely mismatched teeth, a face that would look better ground off and gorgeous eyes with absolutely no place in the head they resided in completed the whole look.

"Crap, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean any harm!"

Considering the situation, it would normally be the knocked down human apologizing in this situation for yelling at the much bigger and scarier creature, but as it was Blackjack was having too much trouble processing this to even talk, leaving the apology to be said by the Monster.

"…Uh… what the…" Shaking his head, Blackjack tries again. "What in fucks name are you?"

"I'm Kress, pleased to meet you!"

"That's not what I… never mind. Mind giving me a hand u- Gah holy crap you're crushing my arm!"

"Sorry, just trying to help!"

Not long after, Blackjack was dusting himself off and looking at the being in front of him, Kress as it calls itself.

"So uh… why did you knock me over?"

"It was a total accident, I promise, I was just trying to get past you to sit in the corner under the AC there."

"… A noble cause. Alright, I'll forgive it this time, it is fucking hot after all."

Kress visibly let out a breath she seemed to have been holding.

Blackjack frowned. A monster like this, worried that a total stranger would be mad at… her? Yes, probably her. Sorry, I'm getting off-topic.

Weird was something Blackjack could deal with, even when it got as strange as alien abduction, it was just something he lived with and accepted as fact, but this was just… different.

"Right, erm… anyway… Are you new here too?"

"Oh yes, just got here now actually, was going to do some jobs on the board there to pay for a room tonight, though I ended up posting one myself. I was kinda…. High."

"I see. What job did you post?"

"…"

"Kress?"

"I… I'm paying one hundred caps for someone to be my friend…" The words were accompanied by a blush, as well as an awkward shifting of the feet and tail that somehow Blackjack had not seen sooner.

"… Do you have the caps?"

And that's how Blackjack ended up friends with this… Creature. It seemed polite and intelligent enough to at least get along with, after all. Blackjack wasn't looking for friends, but one hundred caps are one hundred caps.

* * *

Not long later, Blackjack and his new companion were standing in front of the town hall, which was little more than a few shipping containers riveted and in some place duct-taped together. The two were here due to two jobs posted for the place. Radroach extermination and Chandelier repair.

What the job page didn't mention was that there were seventy of them, packed into a very small space where Blackjack's bolt action was useless, meaning he and Kress had to kill them by hand. Blackjack was in mild despair at this, as his clothes had been custom-tailored and were now ruined and stained by god knows what.

Blackjack was not having a good day.

In fact, out of spite, once the job was done he did the chandelier job by hanging about a dozen of the filthy bugs from the two hideous decorative lights.

From there, Blackjack had a job to do at the hotel, a prostitution job. Blackjack would do anything if you gave him enough caps, and this was an example of that.

"Kress?"

"Yes, Blackjack?"

"Why does this building smell so horrendous?"

"I was wondering about that… Anyway, I'll see you back at the bar."

"I hate you."

With that, Blackjack reluctantly went inside the third building of the three-building town.

"Mistah?" An annoying voice greeted the already annoyed man walking in. The voice of a child emanating from a mister handy behind the counter.

"Mistah, do you need something?"

'Oh god' was all Blackjack could think as he prepared to talk to this already insufferable robot. Something about how it said mister just really grated against Blackjack's already fried nerves.

This did not improve as he read who was paying for him to sleep with them.

"Yes… I'm looking for the mayor"

"Sorry Mistah, but he's unavailable."

"Why?"

"He's on a cruise Mistah"

"A… Cruise?"

"Yes Mistah"

"How? There's no water anywhere near here"

"He's in his room Mistah"

"Hold on, what happened to the cruise?"

"He's having the cruise in his room Mistah"

Blackjack was not known for his patience.

"Okay, look here you bucket of bolts, if you don't start making sense real fast then I'm going to reduce you to smoking scrap!"

"Mistah?" Oh brilliant, the robot was also dense.

So Blackjack did the only reasonable thing in this situation. He left the building, went to the bar, borrowed the decorative axe on the wall, went back to the hotel, and hacked the Mistah Handy to bits.

'Shit, now it's got me doing it'

Again and again, Blackjack brought the axe down on the brain dead machine, and what confused him was that that it both didn't fight back and refused to die, despite the enormous physical damages.

"Why Mistah?"

Hack.

"Mistah?"

Smash.

Blackjack even had an audience in the form of Kress, who had followed him from the bar after noticing his poor mood.

"Uh… Blackjack? You might want to look to the left there."

Blackjack huffed and did as he was told, coming face to face with an Assaultron. A fucking Assaultron.

"Mist-"

And Blackjack did not allow it to finish the word he now hated as he slammed the blunt side of the axe into its head.

It went down without a fight, and silence reigned.

Panting, Blackjack decided to sit down for a moment to catch his breath.

"Well… That was dramatic…"

"It was necessary, did you hear the thing?! The fucking devil it is. If I ever hear the word Mistah again I promise I will murder everyone responsible for my misfortune that day."

And then, like the devil himself had whispered it, Blackjack heard something from behind a metal door.

"Mistah?"

And now Blackjack was mad. He stormed over to the door and yanked it open, revealing a room full of robot parts, including two Mr. Handy units. One of them was awake and clearly running the same software as the one at the desk. He destroyed it without mercy.

The other was fine once activated, though stuck speaking German, so Blackjack left it with Kress to reprogram. Turns out she was quite good at that, meaning Blackjack could get to his third favorite thing, after sex and killing.

Collecting. Blackjack was not ashamed to say that he was a bit of a hoarder, however, he differs from a normal hoarder in the sense that everything he collects always ends up being useful or even critical in saving his life at some point, the deck of metal playing cards in his pocket being an example of this.

Furthermore, when you've got a small machine bigger on the inside that you stole from an alien spaceship that you can use to store things in it becomes rather obvious that you should take as much with you as you can, just in case.

So Blackjack took everything that would fit into the strange black orb Blackjack carried everywhere. Robot parts, fusion cores, a 10mm, and even a car battery went into the alien device for easy transport.

* * *

"Sir… What are you doing?"

Blackjack nearly sobbed. It will never be clear why Mistah had such a profound negative effect on Blackjack (I blame drug abuse) but at present, he was just happy that the robot Kress got working wasn't a complete moron like the rest were.

Said robot seemed quite perplexed by the behavior of the volatile human in the room and began voicing its concerns with a slight German accent to its words.

"Perhaps you should lie down sir, you seem quite stressed"

"I assure you, Mr. Handy, I'm perfectly fine. Stressed sure, but nothing I'm not accustomed to."

"If you say so, sir…" The Mr. Handy seemed rather uncertain. Blackjack raised a questioning eye at Kress.

"Gave it more brains than average then?"

"Well… Its motherboard was destroyed so I… borrowed a military-grade one from the Assaultron."

"You say that like you expect me to be mad."

"Well, I kinda do. You brutally destroyed three robots because of how they said a word."

Okay, so Kress kinda had a point there.

"Alright, fine, you win. In any case, we need to get out of town, but I doubt that anyone will let us leave in one piece, we did just-"

"You did just" Cut in Kress, correcting Blackjack immediately.

"Fine, I did just steal all of their robots as well as their parts."

"Better. So what are you planning?"

"Something stupid and quite nasty"

"I like it already" Piped up the Mr. Handy suddenly, voicing his opinion.

While the robot accepted the plan easily, Kress was far harder to convince, however, Blackjack learned that Kress too liked gambling, so they played a card game over it (Blackjack, obviously. We've said his name enough, take a hint).

Guess who won.

* * *

"I can't believe we're doing this" complained Kress as she stretched to get ready for the upcoming events.

"I can"

"Yes but you're a robot. You're programmed to take things at face value."

"Ouch"

Blackjack stepped in. "Guys, focus, we've got work to do. Kress, you take the rooms on the left of the hall, I'll take right, and the robot here can guard the front door."

"I have a name you know"

"No, you don't"

"Alright fine but that's because you haven't given me one yet."

Our 'Hero' decided wisely not to argue with a robot, they're usually a fair bit smarter than a human. He then led the way from the room, everyone splitting up as ordered. The hotel had six bedrooms, three on each side. For a town with a population of fifteen people, it left the question as to where everyone slept, but that's a topic for another day.

Blackjack opened the door to room one, finding a sleeping couple in bed.

Putting a silencer on the stolen 10mm, he very quickly ended them before searching their belongings.

Gold chain, diamond engagement ring, a handful of caps, a nice suit, a few-

Hold up, a suit?

Dropping what he was doing, Blackjack immediately turned his attention to the suit in question. It was a simple black tuxedo with a blood-red button-up shirt and a black tie. It was nothing fancy, but Blackjack actually gives a shit about his looks, so his ruined clothes got tossed aside in favor of the simple suit.

After that, he finished looting and moved to room two. This room seemed almost sterile, like the person sleeping here was a total germaphobe. They were easy to spot too, they wore a hazmat suit to bed. An axe went through it easily enough, of course.

The third room ended up belonging to the man who hired him for the prostitution job, and it turns out that in robot speak Cruise means somehow killed by an overabundance of standard STDs.

But that's not what drew Blackjack's attention, nor was it the piles of caps around the room.

No, what he cared about was a suit of power armor. It was the Boston variant, new stuff that needs a fusion core. Until now Blackjack has never really understood the appeal of it, but seeing it in person changed his stance dramatically.

Unfortunately, as if to crush his improving mood, it was non-functional and too big for him to carry. Blackjack nearly passed it off as a lost cause, but then Kress came in. At this moment and this moment alone, Blackjack saw them as a truly beautiful and wonderful person.

Then he forced them to carry the power armor.

From there the rest fell easily, especially a synth that was in the bar that Blackjack took pleasure in ripping apart. After looting anything else of value, the dead town was set alight.

"Blackjack?"

"Yes, Kress?"

"Did we just murder a town full of people?"

"Yep."

"Right. I just needed to clarify that…"

Blackjack didn't comment. He knew that what they just did was evil, and it was entirely his fault that they did it, but he didn't care. He had loot, caps, allies and he got to kill a few people.

Blackjack was finally having a good day.

* * *

**_And there we have it, chapter one properly written down and finished!_**

**_Grammarly is set to American at the moment, and I can't be bothered changing it yet, so expect some slight differences in the spellings in the next chapter._**

**_Thank you for reading and I hope you have a fantastic Christmas season._**

**_-Still Rae_**


End file.
